County Administrator concedes little done so far to determine city leaders’ views on county’s encompassing city parking lot in planning for new jail and related facilities
Although four votes were needed for approval, only three of the Sarasota County commissioners agreed last week that the county should purchase a parcel comprising 0.62 acres in downtown Sarasota for use in planning for a new jail.
The expense was too high for Chair Joe Neunder and Commissioner Tom Knight, they said.
The owner — 2100 Main LLC — wanted $4,870,000, with that offer valid only through Friday, April 25, Neunder indicated. The registered agent for that limited liability company is attorney John N. Brugger of Naples, the Florida Division of Corporations says.
The original asking price was $5.8 million, Carolyn Eastwood, director of the county’s Capital Projects Department, reported. The last time the property was sold — on Nov. 11, 2022 — the price was $2,575,000, she pointed out.
The supermajority vote was needed, backup agenda materials indicated, because the purchase would have necessitated an amendment to the county’s Capital Improvement Program for this fiscal year.
During the April 22 discussion, the commissioners also learned from County Administrator Jonathan Lewis that, in spite of their direction in late February for county administrative staff to pursue discussions with City of Sarasota leaders about the potential use of a city parking lot for a reconfigured Correctional Campus on Ringling Boulevard, nothing more than initial outreach had taken place.
On Jan. 28, during another commission discussion with staff, the potential first arose in public that the property located at 2100 Main St. could be sold to the county, to provide for flexibility in construction not only of a new jail but also of a modern county Justice Center. The latter stands at 2071 Ringling Blvd.
A church is located on the 2100 Main St. parcel, as noted in a county staff memo included in the agenda packet for the commission’s regular meeting on April 22.
Of the three options that staff provided to the commissioners on Jan. 28, two included graphics showing that a new Criminal Justice Center — as staff calls the facility — could be built at 2100 Main St.
The staff memo in the April 22 meeting packet did explain, “The property is subject to a restriction regarding the delivery of a cornerstone of the building to the Church at the time … the structure is demolished. The tenant’s lease of the property has the option of an early termination that the County can exercise upon a 120-day written notice to the tenant. At closing the Closing Attorney will prepare an Assignment of Lease that will transfer the lease to the County, and the rent payment as well as the security deposit will be prorated through the escrow.”
The current tenant is Harbour Church, which has two Sunday services, its website says.
During her April 22 presentation, Eastwood of Capital Projects showed the board members a slide to remind them of the discussions that they and their predecessors have had since the fall of 2023 in regard to efforts to reduce the number of inmates in the jail. The facility routinely has more people incarcerated than its rating allows.
The capacity is 836. However, charts that The Sarasota News Leader has received through a public records request show that, for the final quarter of 2024, the figure was 1,167 in October; 1,151 in November; and 1,159 in December. Those numbers include males, females and juveniles, the document points out.
In late January 2024, the commissioners seated at that time agreed that a 2026 referendum should be part of the General Election ballot for November 2026, with voters to be asked to approve the funding necessary for a new jail. Staff has put construction in the range of $700 million. In accord with a section of the Sarasota County Charter, the commission has to have voter approval to issue bonds above a certain threshold.
However, during that Jan. 30, 2024 discussion, the board members focused mostly on what has been called the Correctional Reintegration Center, where inmates with low-level felony charges who have behavioral health or drug abuse problems could be treated instead of being placed in the jail. The commissioners also talked of paying for the renovation of the West Wing of the jail, which is the oldest part of the downtown detention center.
In recent months, the focus has shifted to the construction of a new jail, with the reintegration facility on the ground floor, along with a new Criminal Justice Center.
“We’re doing the more detailed analysis” of options that the commissioners provided staff in late February, Eastwood said on April 22. The estimates should be available this fall, she added.
‘Doubling their money’
Turning again to the 2100 Main St. parcel, Eastwood told the commissioners that the county had had two appraisals done; the average of them was $3,110,000.
Yet, the average of the owners’ two appraisals was $4,870,000, she noted.
Before commissioners zeroed in on the owners’ price, Commissioner Knight said he believed that he had read a stipulation that the site could not be used for a jail. “If the referendum doesn’t pass,” he added, “what do we do with the property, if we can’t use it for [jail] capacity? … The most important thing that we need is capacity.”
Knight served as the county sheriff for three, four-year terms, concluding in 2020.
Eastwood replied that the county could sell it or “You could use it for additional parking, which is always kind of a premium downtown, or some other use.”
County Attorney Joshua Moye then pointed out that, “I would say that you could use it for anything other than a prison or a jail,” based on the proposed deed restrictions for the parcel.
Knight stressed that “the most important thing” is getting the referendum approved. “There’s no guarantees on that. … It’s just a lot of unknowns before we buy.”
Nonetheless, Knight continued, since a rehabilitation center is not a jail, he saw no reason why that Main Street parcel could not be used for the reintegration center.
Eastwood noted that a referendum would be needed to finance that structure, as well, even without a jail as part of the package.
Commissioner Mark Smith asked Knight whether the inmates in the reintegration center would be considered incarcerated.
Referencing a Florida State University professor whose expertise is in corrections issues, Knight replied, “I would say that [the reintegration center is] what we make it out to be.”
Knight explained that all rehabilitation efforts underway are taking place within the jail because no other facility is available for the Sheriff’s Office staff to use.
(A Community Offender Rehabilitative Treatment (CORT) facility — which the county financed as a three-year pilot program on the campus of what used to be First Step of Sarasota but is now Lightshare Behavioral Wellness & Recovery — ended its operations last year.)
“I would say rehabilitation’s much different than a jail,” Knight added.
County Attorney Moye called Knight’s statement logical.
Then Chair Neunder brought up the purchase price for the 2100 Main parcel.
“I’d like to maybe pause for just a little bit for a deep breath,” he told his colleagues, adding that he was not certain about the urgency of proceeding with plans to buy the property. Neunder further noted of the owners, “They’re going to double their money, essentially,” referring to what the limited liability company paid for the parcel in 2022.
Neunder stressed the difference between the owners’ appraisals and the county’s appraisals and the fact that the commissioners are the stewards of taxpayer dollars.
County staff should focus first on the city parking lot, he added.
Then Commissioner Ron Cutsinger asked Eastwood of Capital Projects, “Can you give us a little more context here on this. Obviously, we want the property for what we need,” he continued, but why were the appraisals so far apart?
Referencing Neunder’s comment, Cutsinger added, “It is something of a little bit of a bitter pill to say you’re doubling your money in two years …”
Explaining that she was not part of the county’s negotiating team, Eastwood replied, “My understanding is” that the county’s appraisers ultimately talked with the owners’ appraisers and came to the conclusion that the owners’ figures “were OK, so I don’t know what the disconnect was.”
Curtsinger told her, “I don’t want to lose [this parcel]. I guess what I’m saying is, they’re not going to make any more downtown [property] next to where we need it. … I’ve had to buy some properties that I paid too much for” because of their location.
Noting Eastwood’s remark about the county’s appraisers agreeing with the owners, Neunder said, “That makes no sense to me …”
He again emphasized, “I have to protect the taxpayers’ interest.”
County Administrator Lewis suggested that the board members call Justin Sago, manager of the county’s Real Property Division, to the podium, to learn what he could tell them about the appraisals.
The county’s appraisals, Sago explained, did not take into account that the 2100 Main St. parcel could be developed with the City of Sarasota’s residential density bonus tied to inclusion of affordable dwelling units.
In the Downtown Core zoning district — where the Main Street parcel stands — a developer is limited to 50 dwellings per acre. However, the company could construct up to 200 units if at least 15% of them were priced to be affordable, in accord with zoning changes that the City Commission approved on Sept. 5, 2023.
“Our internal appraiser took a look [at that] and agreed,” Sago told the commissioners.
When Commissioner Knight again expressed concern about proceeding with the purchase at the price offered, Commissioner Teresa Mast pointed out, “I think I’m going to be pretty clear on the fact [that] anything that you do has risks involved. I always want to marginalize them as much as possible,” she continued. “For me,” Mast said, “this is an investment in what I would call future projects. … The safety net for me is the fact that I know you can turn around and sell things in this town, and the likeliness of losing your original investment is very minimal …”
She further stressed, “This is a very valuable piece of property to the county from the perspective of that need for [jail] capacity.”
Commissioner Smith pointed out that, because the parcel stands along what he called the “judicial corridor” of downtown Sarasota, “I believe it is a good investment and I’m in favor of moving forward on this.”
Knight questioned how quickly the county could sell the property if it did not want to keep it. He also pointed out, “We don’t want to take things off the tax rolls and become a real estate agent because we took a calculated risk.”
“If we lose this,” Commissioner Cutsinger told his colleagues, “I’m going to bereally disappointed. I think we all will. … This is right where we need it.”
He also pointed out, “The worst case scenario is that we’d have to [declare the parcel to be surplus] and sell it and get our money back …”
‘Initial contact’ about the city parking lot
At that point, Chair Neunder asked staff, “Where are we in the conversation with the City of Sarasota on their property,” referring to the public parking lot that stands on the site that formerly was home to the Sarasota Police Department Headquarters.
“Had just initial contact with them,” County Administrator Lewis replied.
“What does that mean?” Neunder asked Lewis.
“We’ve reached out to them on the topic.”
The creation of the parking lot was one facet of a multi-pronged settlement between the county and the city several years ago after a dispute arose over the termination of the Downtown Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) tax-increment financing agreement. City staff — including then-Manager Tom Barwin and then-Finance Director John Lege — maintained that the county owed one more payment to the city in accord with the terms of the 30-year agreement. The Office of the County Attorney disagreed.
Many years before that dispute arose, the property was to have been turned over to the county as part of a deal that then-County Administrator Jim Ley had structured with city leaders to keep county operations in downtown Sarasota.
During the April 22 discussion, County Administrator Lewis told the commissioners that the potential purchase of the 2100 Main St. property “was just an opportunity we needed to bring to the board” for consideration. He then referenced Cutsinger’s comment about the fact that no one is creating new property in what is known as the Criminal Justice Corridor on Ringling Boulevard.
Commissioner Mark Smith ended up making a motion to approve the purchase of the parcel, agreeing with Cutsinger. Smith also expressed optimism that the 2026 jail referendum will succeed. “And unless folks are going to start adopting prisoners,” Smith said, “we’re going to have to get a bigger jail.”
Moreover, Smith concurred with Mast about being able to sell the property if the county does not end up needing it.
Still, he said, he believes the city parking lot location would be preferable for the reconfiguration of operations in the Criminal Justice Corridor, including a new jail.
“I don’t believe [the Main Street property is] ever going to be worth less than it is now,” Cutsinger said after seconding the motion.
Knight agreed with Smith about the location of the city parking lot, noting that it is adjacent to the Silvertooth Judicial Center, which is the primary courthouse facility in downtown Sarasota.
Neunder told his colleagues, “I think I’m just not willing to take a chance on real estate,” adding that he also was “not comfortable rushing into things like [a sale with a deadline set just a few days after a board discussion].”
Neunder also referenced the negotiations with the city over the parking lot. He asked Eastwood of Capital Projects to remind him when the commissioners directed staff to start looking into the prospect of the county’s using that site.
When she responded that it was on Feb. 25, Neunder pointed out, “That’s two months ago, and I don’t have any additional information about negotiations [on it].”
He added that perhaps he could contact city commissioners “and see if they have anything informative for me.”
When he called for the vote, it was 3-1; thus, the motion failed, given the need for four positive votes.
County Administrator Lewis said staff would inform the owners of the parcel about the decision and continue discussions with the administrative staff of the City of Sarasota.